Humbug Mountain (5 page)

Glorietta gave me a look and a whisper. “Oughten we to run for it, Wiley?”

“Unless it's Grandpa,” I said.

“Grandpa?”

“Talking to himself. Out of his wits or something.”

Then there came a sudden rustle of leaves. Glorietta lit out across the creek bed and I might have been right beside her—but I saw it.

A crow. Nothing but a big ol' crow.

It rose through the treetops into the sunlight. A he-crow, I thought—it must have had a wingspread of about three feet. Then four or five other crows came flapping after it.

“Hang'm!”

“Bash'm!”

“Caw-caw-caw!”

I stood up and spit angrily. I didn't enjoy being scared out of my wits by a flock of common crows, but it was surprising to meet up with birds that spoke the English language.

“Hey, Glorietta!” I yelled. “Come on back! It's nothing! Only a bunch of infernal crow birds!”

She was almost out of sight around a bend in the creek. But she stopped without looking back at me. Something farther along had caught her eye. She stood fixed where she stood.

“Wiley!” she yelled. “Look! Look what I found!”

The morning sun flashed off her glasses, and then she disappeared around the bend.

So I ran along the creek bed too. And the birds followed along, caw-cawing.

It wasn't a moment before I cut around the bend and hauled up short.

Before me, not fifty yards off, stood a riverboat.

It stood sunk and dry on the creek bottom. Mooring lines swung like strands of a great spiderweb from the trees along the bank. Weeds and creepers had grown up through the huge side wheels. I looked at the empty pilot-house windows, streaked with dirt. I'd never seen such a lonely and forlorn boat. You could tell it had once been pluckish and grand; it was fancied up with lacy-cut woodwork. But now the white paint hung in peels and tatters like a snake shedding its skin.

Glorietta was out of breath when we joined up and stepped closer. The crows fluttered down, taking perches like vultures on the crown of the smokestack.

I gave a shout. “Hello, the boat!”

Silence. We moved nearer and I called again.

“No one there,” Glorietta said.

“Must be. Someone taught those crows to speak.” I tried again, cupping my hands. “Anybody here?”

“Fool Killer!”
The big he-crow was at it again.

We made tracks along the flat hull and looked up at the wooden nameplate hanging on the side of the pilot-house. The weathered gold letters gave me a start, and Glorietta too.

It was the
Phoenix.

Grandpa's boat.

7

THE FOOL KILLER

Glorietta ran back to fetch Pa and Ma. A splintery old gangplank stretched between the creek bluff and the middle deck, and I walked aboard.

“Grandpa?” I called out. “Grandpa, it's me—Wiley.”

The deck was gritty under my feet. Windblown dirt covered everything and was piled up like sand dunes against the cabins. I saw footprints. Lots of them, going and coming and scuffled about in the dust. They struck me as almighty fresh.

“Grandpa!”

I had no more than got the word out of my mouth when a hand snatched me by the collar, jerked me off my feet, and held me aloft like a kicking rabbit.

“Cuss'd little varmint!” came a dry whisper at my ear. “What for you sneaking around here?”

He twisted me around to take a closer look. I gazed back at a pair of mean, deep-sunk little eyes and a mouthful of yellow teeth. He was tall and dreadfully skinny—as if he had the dry wilts. Stringy red hair shot down from under the brim of his floppy hat. He had a long horse-face and long bare feet. He was dressed in rags.

My heart was banging so loud he must have been able to hear it. I swallowed hard and managed to say, “This is my grandpa's boat.”

“Ain't no grandpas around here.”

“Then reckon I better be going. If you'll kindly put me down.”

Those deep eyes of his didn't blink any more'n a lizard's.

“Who are you?” I muttered.

It was an eternity before he answered. Finally, in that whispery voice of his, he said, “The Fool Killer.”

I think I stopped breathing. As far back as I could remember I'd heard tales of the Fool Killer. He was supposed to carry a bur-oak club on his shoulder and wander the countryside searching for fools. He'd smite them on the head. He was always barefoot, and he had such a long jaw he could eat oats out of a nose bag. Pa said there was no such real creature as the Fool Killer, but the hair on my neck had gone as stiff as hog bristles. This barefoot man was so long-
faced
he could eat out of a churn.

He upended me, caught my ankles in his big, rattle-boned hands, and carried me like a dead chicken up some stairs to the top deck. I figured he must be going for his bur-oak club. If I didn't do something quick I was done for.

From one smokestack the crows began to squawk again.

“Fool Killer!”

“Bash'm!”

His hands were powerful as iron chain. I was in a blue fright. If only I'd thought to glance at my mirror ring I'd have seen him come ghosting up behind me.

He'd have to let go of my ankles when he fetched up his club, I thought. And I'd be off quicker'n high-lightning.

The Fool Killer kicked open a door. From inside came a thunderous snort and snoring.

“Shagnasty,” the Fool Killer called out.

We were in the pilothouse. I could make out the tall oaken steering wheel, and daylight aglow at the huge windows. Then I saw a man rouse himself from a bedroll on the floor.

“Cuss it all, Fool Killer,” he said. “Can't a gentleman take a wink of sleep around here?”

“I catched me another fool,” said the Fool Killer.

“Don't look like nothing but a shirttail boy. Set him down.”

The Fool Killer kicked the door shut and swung me right-side up. For the first time I got a square look at Mr. Shagnasty. He wore a mangy old bearskin coat and he was big around as a sauerkraut barrel. His beard was dirt-brown and greasy and all a'tangle, like the hairs on a smelly old billy goat.

“Fool Killer,” he snorted. “Ain't you got more sense than to bring him aboard? You give away our hideout.”

“I spied him cat-footing around.”

The other man fixed his eyes on me and hitched up his gunbelt. “Is that a fact?”

“No sir,” I said. “I wasn't sneaking about. I was walking plain as day. But I reckon my grandpa's nowhere around, so I'll just be going.”

“Well, now, sonny, it's a mite late for that.” Mr. Shagnasty pulled out a blue bandanna and gave his lumpy nose a thunderous honk. He wasn't wearing a shirt; just long red underwear, and it was so full of holes you'd think he carried his own moths. “You know who we are,” he said.

I answered quickly. “No sir, I don't.”

“ ‘Course you do! Ain't a sheriff anywhere in the territories not looking for the heads of
Shagnasty
John and the Fool Killer. The terror of the prairies—that's us!”

“I declare,” I muttered, struck with awe. I'd never talked to real outlaws before and I was getting all-over lathers of sweat. They were genuine blood-and-thunder badmen. “I won't tell a perishing soul,” I added earnestly.

“Can't no boy keep a secret,” said the Fool Killer darkly. “Worse'n them crows.”

“Nothing we can do about the crows but chunk stones at 'em,” Shagnasty John said, scratching through his beard. “But dash it all, boy, me and the Fool Killer can't chance you. It don't leave us much choice. You can see that, can't you?”

“No sir,” I answered, trying to stretch out the time. “You must be terrible bad shots if you can't shoot those crows.”

Shagnasty John rumbled out a laugh. “Oh, we can fire straight enough. Stop edging toward that door! The Fool Killer is kind of gone-minded, sonny, and you don't want him to crack you in two like a chicken bone.”

The Fool Killer reached out his long arm and yanked me back. “I'll drop him in the woods with a mighty bash of my club.”

“Fool Killer, don't get anxious,” said Shagnasty John, regarding me with slow, crafty eyes. The whites were brown-streaked like tobacco stains. “Who you traveling with?”

I'd forgot all about Glorietta gone to fetch Ma and Pa. “I'm purely alone!” I declared.

Shagnasty John snorted. “You don't tell me.”

“Yes sir! I run away from home.”

“Wearing shoes? And dressed for church? Sonny, you must figure I got no more brains than God gave geese. Fool Killer, see who else is scuttling about.”

The Fool Killer let loose of me to peer out the wheelhouse windows. I leaped for the door, opened it, banged it shut behind me, and ran like a scared rabbit.

Shagnasty John and the Fool Killer ran thrashing through the cottonwoods after me. But I wasn't in the trees. I'd ducked under a boxed paddle wheel and snugged myself out of sight. But I couldn't stay there. I had to warn Pa.

My heart was banging away something fearful. I hardly waited to catch my breath before I slipped out of hiding, climbed the dry creek bank, and ducked into the trees. I could tell that Shagnasty John and the Fool Killer were some ways off. The crows were flapping over the treetops, following them.

I ran smack into a rope corral. It held two horses.
Their
horses, I thought.

I picked out the spotted mare, grabbed her mane, and heaved myself onto her back. Then I shot out of there lickety-quick.

And
along came Pa and Ma and Glorietta! They were walking through the spring weeds, clear as bull's-eye targets, and not suspecting a thing.

“Go back!” I yelled. “Run!”

But they couldn't fathom what I was yelling about. Or what I was doing on horseback.

Finally I pulled up and slipped off the mare's back. I could hardly believe I'd got this far without Shagnasty John drawing his gun and filling the air with lead.

I danced the horse around broadside to the trees so that we could shelter ourselves behind her.

“There are terrible outlaws back there!” I burst out. “They mean to kill us!”

Ma gave me a startled look. “Now really, Wiley. You must be imagining it.”

“I suppose I'm imagining this horse!”

Pa gave the cottonwoods a tight-eyed gaze. “How do you know they're outlaws?”

“They told me, Pa. Shagnasty John and the Fool Killer. Every sheriff in the territories is looking for them. They're using the
Phoenix
for a hideout.”

Ma's fingers had crept to her spidery lace collar. “Is Grandpa there?”

“No, Ma.”

“There's no such man as the Fool Killer,” Pa said,

“There is now, Pa. Peevish and meaner'n a hornet. Both of 'em.”

“Wearing guns?”

“Shagnasty John is. The terror of the prairies, he said.”

“Never heard of him.” Pa stood calm as an owl at midnight. “It baffles me that he didn't pop some lead your way, Wiley. Especially since you rode off on one of their horses.”

“He could have been afraid of shooting the mare,” Ma said.

“Must have,” I said. And yet, I thought, he'd had a clear shot when I'd busted out of the pilothouse—and maybe again before I'd reached the stairway.

“Downright peculiar,” Pa remarked, more to himself than us.

“They're over in those trees,” I said, pointing. “Where you see the crows. Watching us for sure. Hadn't we better edge back in a hurry?”

“Wiley, there's no place for us to run where they can't find us out here,” Pa answered. “It seems to me they'd already be in full view and shooting up a hailstorm—if they could. It's unnatural. Unless their cartridge belts are empty. Did you notice?”

No, sir.

But the Fool Killer would have armed himself with his bur-oak club, I thought. I glanced at Glorietta. I could see she was feeling scared about the Fool Killer and all the stories we'd heard.

Pa checked his pepperbox pistol. I peered under the horse's belly and spotted the crows. Shagnasty John and the Fool Killer were keeping themselves mouse-quiet.

“We've come this far and we're not turning back,” Pa declared. “Not until we find out what happened to your grandfather. He might have left papers aboard. A logbook, certainly. I have an idea I can send those rascals packing.” He handed Ma the short, six-barreled pistol. “Don't fire this bric-a-brac unless you've got no choice.”

“Rufus!” Ma exclaimed. “You're not going out there!”

“I promise you the terrors of the plains are going to be mighty glad to meet me.” Pa gave us a wink. “I want all of you to stay put until I settle matters. Shouldn't take five minutes.”

And he was gone. He went striding across the bare city limits of Sunrise, the knife-blade brim of his hat cocked at an angle.

8

THE GHOST

I watched Pa's lanky, high-headed figure and hoped I'd grow up to be as fearless as that. You'd think he was just going out for a stroll. Before long he disappeared into the cottonwoods.

We waited. I listened for the sudden crack of gunfire. Pa might have miscalculated Shagnasty John and the Fool Killer. A minute passed without a sound reaching us. There was just the crows flapping from one treetop to another.

“Well, don't worry about your pa,” said Ma. “There's more than one way to skin a cat, and he knows them all.”

Glorietta couldn't hold back a whisper. “What did the Fool Killer look like?”

“Never mind,” I said.

“Was he carrying a bur-oak club?”

“Glorietta, you know he's pure hogwash. Pa said so, didn't he?”

“But you
saw
him, Wiley. Did he have a horse-face? Could he eat out of a nose bag?”